


The SGRUB Institute For (Inaccurate) Genetic Research

by seakrait (seagreen)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:38:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 16,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seagreen/pseuds/seakrait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which the trolls are all (human) genetic experiment mutants, except they mostly just have medical problems and no awesome powers. Also Doc Scratch is creepy as hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (2007)

[2007]

_[click]_

_DS     Okay, that's… we're just making an audio recording of this for our own records. Would you like a drink, Ms Quan? Anything to eat?_

_WQ    No, it's okay, thanks._

_DS    Fine. Just let me know, I'll be happy to provide whatever you'd like. So, shall we move onto the introduction?_

_WQ    Yes, certainly._

_DS    John? Could you bring her in, please? (Pause). Okay. Sit down, Aradia._

_AM    Okay._

_DS    Say hello to Ms Quan._

_AM    Hello, Ms Quan._

_WQ    Hello - Aradia, was it?_

_AM    Yeah._

_DS    Ms Quan is new here. She's going to be working with you and the others, and she just wants to talk a little bit to you about your life here and why you're a little different to other children._

_AM    Okay._

_WQ    So, um, Aradia… how old are you?_

_AM    Eight._

_WQ    Eight. And you live here full-time, is that right?_

_AM    Yeah._

_WQ    So what is it about you that's… different?_

_AM    Uh, well… (pause) when I was really little, I got sick and I like, died?_

_WQ    You…_

_DS    She was dying of meningitis. Flatlined. Multiple organ failure._

_AM    And uh, the doctors here, I would have stayed dead, except they like gave me a new heart and other bits._

_DS    Artificial heart, lungs, one hand, a few other organs._

_WQ    And those are all…_

_DS    All synthetic, 3D-printed, yes. Nothing organic at all. So she's an absolutely remarkable achievement in terms of prosthetics and organ replacement._

_AM    Yeah. So I wasn't dead anymore. And uh… I guess I lived here after that._

_WQ    Your parents didn't…_

_DS    Ah, not really in the picture, I'm afraid. She was in the care system. But it wouldn't be practical for her to live elsewhere at this stage. There's too much that could go wrong… Besides, she needs surgery regularly as she grows. Synthetic organs can do a lot, but they don't grow with her body._

_WQ    No, of course._

_DS    So every year or two she gets a new set. But if there was any sort of malfunction - well, better for her to be here where that can be easily dealt with._

_WQ    I see._

_DS    So as I was saying - remarkable achievement in terms of her replacement limbs and organs. But it's the neural aspects that are really groundbreaking._

_WQ    Yes, you mentioned the neural tech…_

_DS    Aradia, tell Ms Quan what the time is._

_AM    Uh, it's seventeen minutes past ten in the morning. And thirty-one seconds._

_DS    You'll notice there's no clock in here she could have read that from - but it's perfectly accurate. Feel free to check your cellphone. She's reading from her internal clock._

_WQ    So she just…_

_DS    Yes. It's completely integrated with her human brain. Retrieving that information feels normal, for her. Aradia, what's… oh, the square root of 2, 871? Just a few decimal places, please._

_AM    Fifty-three point five eight._

_DS    Again, feel free to check._

_(Pause)_

_WQ    That's… yes, that's correct. Incredible._

_DS    I know you're wondering if we just trained her on a few answers. Don't worry, that's a perfectly reasonable reaction. But please, ask her your own questions. Make them as complicated as you like._

_WQ    No, I, it's fine…_

_DS    Please, go ahead._

_WQ    Uh. What's… three hundred and seventeen divided by forty-one?_

_AM    Seven point seven three one seven zero recurring._

_(Pause)_

_WQ    Nineteen thousand, two hundred and sixty-six multiplied by thirty-four._

_AM    Six hundred and fifty-five thousand and forty-four._

_(Pause)_

_WQ    That's astonishing._

_DS    She really is. Aradia's a very special little girl._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DS here is Doc Scratch, not a Strider. WQ is, unsurprisingly, WQ, though she's obviously going by a different name here.


	2. >Nepeta: Flip the fuck out.

[2012]

"Oh my god. Oh my god." Nepeta puts her head down flat on the table, almost knocking over Aradia's orange juice as she does. "Where are they, though? I can't handle the suspense. Like they SAID first thing this morning and it's like half-past nine now."

Almost twenty to ten, actually, Aradia thinks, but she figured out years earlier that nobody appreciates her correcting them like that. She shrugs, tries to pretend she isn't very nearly as nervous and excited as Nepeta is. How long has it been since any of them met anyone new? Three, maybe four years? More? And that wasn't the same - that was just a new doctor, a new therapist. Not six people all at once, and definitely not six people their own age. That is pretty unprecedented.

"They'll be here soon," she says. "They're probably just on their way here right now." They'll be in transit somewhere, she thinks, and she's honestly kind of jealous of them getting to actually do that, because that means they're riding around somewhere in the outside world, and maybe there are even windows for them to look through. She's never been in a car, or a bus, or a plane, that she can remember. 

Nepeta rolls her eyes. "I just want to see them! I woke up at like six for this."

"No wonder you're so cranky."

"I'm not cranky! I'm EXCITED. And, like." Nepeta pauses. "I guess nervous. Like they're definitely going to think I'm a freak, I guess."

"We're all freaks."

"Yeah, but you're a cool robot cyborg girl, and I just… look like this."

"You're a cute cat girl," Aradia says. She feels a little bad for teasing Nepeta, now. But everyone here is so used to her face that they don't see it as weird or disfigured. She's just Nepeta.

"Okay but they're not gonna think I'm cute. They're going to be like, what the hell is THAT. Like Ms Quan was the first time. And John, and Petra."

Terezi, over the other side of the table, looks up from her breakfast and in Nepeta's general direction.

"Well, speaking as a blind person," she says finally, " I think you look fine."

Nepeta pulls a not-convinced face, but giggles a little.

"Anyway," Terezi says. "They might all totally be even weirder."

"Yeah."

"Like they all have butts grafted onto their heads or something."

"Oh my god, Terezi."

"Or dicks on their faces."

Nepeta is properly laughing now. "Yeah. Dickface and Butthead, the world's greatest triumphs of genetic science."

"Next to them you'll be basically a supermodel."

"Yeah. Nepeta Leijon, the first mutant supermodel."

"Anyway," Aradia says, "you always say you like your face."

"I do," Nepeta says. "It's just, other people don't, maybe."

"Then they're assholes and we will all ignore them and their face dicks," Terezi says, and knocks back the rest of her coffee in one mouthful. Terezi is the only twelve-year-old Aradia knows who drinks black coffee. Then again, she only knows three twelve-year-olds in the entire world - Tavros turned thirteen last month - so maybe that doesn't count for much. "But I bet they can't all be assholes. Anyway, hey, where are the guys? I can't smell them anywhere."

"Tav has physical therapy this morning," Aradia says. "I don't know about Fish. Maybe he's sick again."

"Maybe he's skulking in his room and sulking about having to share it, more like."

"It might be fun having roommates," Nepeta says. "We can stay up late and have tiny slumber parties."

"Two-person slumber party. Yeah, that's pretty tiny."

"It's the thought that counts." Terezi grins at them, then suddenly sits up straighter. "Wait. I can smell… people. New people. Distant, but definitely new people smell."

"Oh my god," Nepeta says. "Let's go get Tavros. And Fish. And go find them. Wait, how close are they? Like, in the building close? Do they smell like, I mean, what…" 

"They smell…. weird." Terezi wrinkles her nose. "But MAYBE we should just go and look at them. Well, you can look. I'll just sniff them from up close."

"I'm sure that won't make them feel uncomfortable at all," Aradia says, but they're already up and walking towards the door. She can feel her electronic heart fluttering a little faster than usual in her chest. Exciting, scary. She tries to slow it down. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't. "I'll pick up Tavros. You two go and find Eridan. See you soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Petra' is PM. Or in this world, Petra Mendez, physical therapist. She will be in the fic a little more later on.


	3. >Nepeta: Make new friends

Okay, so the new people are here. Which is awesome even if Nepeta is pretty freaked out about the whole thing, just quietly, because SIX NEW PEOPLE is a hell of a lot and what if they mess everything up? Or if they’re like, this place is terrible and it sucks and we want to go back to our old closed-down facility? Or if they’re like, the hospital is okay, but YOU suck, Nepeta, and they start picking on her or something? And yeah, whatever, she would just punch them in the face, and Terezi would probably bite them for her or something, but it sounds like stress she doesn’t need.

So she crosses her fingers for luck, inside the pocket of her jeans where nobody can see, and follows the others into the common room where Ms Quan and Dr S are waiting with the new arrivals. And. Like. They… they don’t seem too scary.

There’s a short guy with messy black hair sticking out everywhere and a skinny girl in dark glasses, and another girl next to her whose skin looks weird, like, super pale, except she’s probably not albino because, first, she has greeny-brown eyes and second, she has dark hair, and third, just being albino isn’t going to be enough to get you stuck in the SGRUB project for life, so it’s got to be something weirder than that. And there’s another girl with weird skin, like she looks a little too shiny or something, and a person who Nepeta can’t tell if they’re a boy or a girl, but they’re wearing these weird glasses in two different colours and also they’re fiddling with what looks like a cellphone. They have cellphones?! Nobody in her facility has ever had one. Well, the staff probably do, obviously, but she’s never even got to look at one properly. She definitely has to ask the weird glasses person if she can borrow it.

And then at the back there’s this really, really big guy, like, Nepeta has no idea if he’s the same age as them, but if he is then wow, he is probably the tallest twelve-year-old in the world. And he looks just as stressed out about all this as she secretly is. Probably more. And for a minute she forgets entirely about everything else, and she just wants to hug him and tell him it’ll be okay.

*****

“We’ll just sort out the accommodation arrangements first,” Ms Quan says. “And then you’ll have the morning free to unpack, decorate, get to know each other and so on.”

She hands out the keys to their new rooms. Nepeta is sharing with… Aradia. (She can’t decide if she’s super relieved, or a little disappointed that it’s not someone new she could get to know. Like, it’s a little anticlimactic. But also, Aradia is not scary at all and is probably pretty good to have two-person slumber parties with.) Terezi gets the girl with dark glasses. Fish, hanging back behind them and looking at his feet, gets the short guy, and Tav gets the big tall guy. The weird glasses person and the shiny skin girl are sharing, so maybe the glasses person is a girl? And the very pale girl is getting her own room, apparently. Nepeta wonders why her. Maybe they drew straws and she won. Or lost.

“Wait,” Ms Quan says, as they start to shuffle into new-roommate pairs. “I thought these would be helpful.” She passes out stickers to them all. “Write your name on them. You can wear them for the rest of the day so you all get a chance to learn each other’s names.” Nepeta catches the short guy rolling his eyes, and yeah, it is kind of silly, she guesses, like they’re all little kids. But also probably a good idea? She draws a little cat face on her sticker next to her name. Maybe that way people will think, Oh yes, she’s a cat person, and not, Oh wow, she has a fucked up mouth and she walks weird.

Urgh, why did she have to start thinking about her face again. Now she’s going to have to keep wondering what they think about it. She’s sort of a bit disappointed that none of them are really obviously weird looking. Except the big guy, kind of, but he’s sort of normal, just a bit… scaled up.

The shiny girl - Feferi, her sticker says, and she’s dotted the i with a little smiley face - walks down the corridor with them, her suitcase in one hand. It’s not very big, but then neither is the little box Nepeta packed up last night in preparation for moving. None of them own very much stuff. Where would they even get it from?

“We’re next door to you!” Feferi says. “Me and Sollux. We’re gonna be neighbours! I promise not to play loud music after midnight or anything. You're… Nepeta, right? I like the kittycat. I’d have a pet kitty if I could. I asked for pet fish once and they were like, no. You’d think a fish would be okay, right? Like how much trouble can a fish be? But nooo.”

Plenty, if it’s Fish, Nepeta thinks, but that probably doesn’t count. “Eridan likes fish, too. I mean he’s like, part fish, I guess. Fish genes.”

“Oh my god, he is? That’s so AWESOME.” Feferi is very loud. And kind of hyper. It’s cute. “I’m aquatic too. I’m part frog. Amphibian!” She holds her hand out. “Touch. I’m cold blooded.”

“Seriously?” Nepeta puts out a hand and rests her fingers on Feferi’s arm. She is kind of cold.

“Well, not exactly, like, not the way a frog is, but sort of. Like I can’t really regulate my body temperature. So I’ve got to keep warm from like, my environment. Is he like that too? Is that what the scarf is about?”

“No,” Nepeta says. “I mean, I don’t think so. I think he just wears it to cover his gills up.”

“Ohhh. Why though? Gills are awesome! I wish I had gills. I don’t though. It’s like, I breathe through my skin sorta. But I’d let people see them if I had them. I’d even tie my hair back.”

Nepeta shrugs. “Fish is kinda weird like that.”

“You call him Fish? That’s ADORABLE. Adorabubble. Are you gonna call me Frog? Do they call you Cat?”

Yess! She knew Nepeta was a cat person. That’s so much better than, What happened to your mouth, or Why are your legs bending that way, it’s gross. She likes Feferi already.

“This is ours,” she says, stopping at her room - hers and Aradia’s, now. “Number one. I guess you must be in room 2?”

“Room 2? AWESOME. Sollux is gonna love that.” Feferi opens the door and drags a chair across to prop it open. “Okay. I’m claiming the bed by the window. That’s what they get for being too slow. Wanna help me unpack? I mean, okay, I don’t need any help because it’s like, two dresses and some posters, but you can keep me company. So what’s it like here? TELL ME EVERYTHING.”


	4. >Nepeta: Tell her everything

"Everything" doesn't take very long. Then again, neither does unpacking. Feferi sticks up some posters around her bed, throws a pretty, fluffy pink blanket over it - a birthday gift from one of the staff at her facility, apparently - and folds her clothes into the drawers just as Sollux is finally arriving with Aradia in tow.

"Sollux!" Feferi jumps up from the bed. "Hi. You were slow so I picked the bed with the nice view. You get to be by the door. Also this is Nepeta! And you're…" She leans over to read Aradia's nametag. "A-ray-dia? A-rah-dia? Sorry. I'm Feferi and nobody ever knows how to say that either. And I guess Sollux already introduced themself, right?"

Themself, Nepeta thinks: so not a boy _or_ a girl, then. Huh. Interesting. Sollux seems to have even less to unpack than Feferi; they just throw their shoulder bag onto the other bed without even opening it and shove the cellphone into their jeans pocket.

"I was just showing Sollux round the place," Aradia says. "I mean, it doesn't exactly take long, but… We were just going to go look at the garden, if you want to come?"

Feferi's mouth literally drops open and her eyes go huge and round. "You have a GARDEN? Oh my god." 

Aradia blinks. "Yeah."

"An outside one? You get to go outside?"

"… Yeah. You, uh, you didn't?"

Feferi shakes her head. She looks like she's going to cry. "We never went outside," she says, finally. "Today was, like… it was the first time I can ever remember leaving the building."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a teeny tiny chapter, but there you go.
> 
> Sollux in this universe is intersex (genetic chimera) and nb; being Sollux, they have no intention of ever picking just _one_ binary gender to identify as.


	5. (2007)

_*click*_

_DS Hello? Yes, that's fine. Come in, Tavros. (Pause.) Tavros, this is Ms Quan. She's going to be working here and wants to talk to you a little about your life here. Sit down, please._

_TN Okay._

_WQ Hi, Tavros._

_TN Hi, Ms Quan._

_DS Tavros is… quite a different case from Aradia. Considerably less of a success story, I'm afraid. But we've still been able to gather some really interesting data from him._

_WQ How old are you, Tavros?_

_TN Uh, eight. Nearly nine._

_WQ And you live here with Aradia and the other children, correct?_

_TN Yeah, we've always lived here._

_WQ Do you like it here?_

_TN Um, I guess._

_WQ And Dr. Scratch says you have some problems with your bones, is that right?_

_TN Uh, yeah, they sort of, they break too easy._

_DS Tavros, could you take off your shirt, please?_

_TN Uh, okay._

_DS Turn around._

_WQ Oh. I see. So those are… Are they painful, Tavros?_

_TN No._

_DS They're essentially a sort of, well - the beginning of malformed wings. Tavros was definitely a fairly early attempt with this genetic technique - we used genes found in birds and insects._

_WQ Right. So you were hoping for functional wings?_

_DS Well, we were aware that would be a lot further in the future, really. This was just to see what we could do, in a sense._

_WQ Right._

_DS Unfortunately, as Tavros just mentioned, there are other side effects. His bones are actually mostly hollow, like those of birds._

_WQ I see._

_DS That's why they tend to break easily. And he has a lot of mobility problems, of course. We try to provide him with the best care and pain relief we can... I think it will be interesting to see how things progress as he grows. Okay, Tavros, you can put your shirt back on, thank you._

_TN Okay._

__


	6. >Kanaya: Settle in

It's a bit of an adjustment for all of them at first, of course. Spending your whole life in one fairly small building before abruptly being thrown into another one with five new people will do that. For the first two or three weeks, Kanaya keeps waking up suddenly and panicking because, for a few moments, she doesn't know where she is. She isn't sure whether this would be better or worse if she had a roommate like the others. Perhaps better, if they could reassure her. But then, perhaps worse if they ended up wanting to kill her for being woken up five times a night. So on the whole, it's probably just as well she has her own room.

Not just for that reason, obviously. Sharing a room can be awkward when you have a raging non-24-hour-syndrome sleep disorder and you're also your own nightlight. Some people might appreciate it, of course, but mostly they're probably not that keen on sharing with a person who bioluminesces all night long.

But, despite the strangeness of everything at first, she does settle in, and honestly, she begins to realise that she actually quite likes it here. Karkat rants endlessly about everything from his new roommate ("he wheezes and rattles and coughs all goddamn night, Kanaya, it's like having a slumber party with an entire fucking lung cancer ward") to the apparently inferior quality of the juice in the vending machine, but she can tell he's actually quite happy to have an entire new set of people to bicker with. And there's a garden. She really loves the garden. She's asked if she can have some seeds and bulbs to plant herself, so she can watch them grow, but so far nothing's happened. Still, it's just so lovely to be able to go out there and breathe a little fresh air, feel the sun on her skin and be surrounded with grass and plants and flowers. She can't see over the high, spike-topped walls, but she can lie on her back and look up at the sky.

She sits out there with Vriska and Terezi sometimes - they're suddenly kind of inseparable, which Kanaya is trying not to feel jealous or unsettled about. And, well, it's really nice Vriska has another friend, because she is nothing if not high maintenance, so the more people around the better. It's just, you know. She'd always been _Kanaya's_ best friend before. Ever since they were tiny, messed-up little mutant insect children together. 

But, you know, whatever.

She has other friends.

Like Tavros, say. Tavros is really sweet. And today she's sitting out in the garden reading one of the few books she owns for the hundredth time, when he comes up and mumbles a small, quiet hi to her, and sits down on the bench. She can tell he wants to talk, but she sits and waits and lets him do it in his own time.

"So, uh, hey, Kanaya."

"Hey, Tavros." She closes her book.

"So, uh, I was wondering if I could talk to you? Because, I already talked to Aradia, but this is a thing where you might be able to help, specifically, if that's okay."

"I can try," she says.

"I just, um, I wondered if you, like… I'm not sure what to do, or how to tell if someone sort of, um, likes me."

"I'm not sure how to tell, really," Kanaya says. "As far as I'm aware, nobody ever has. Like-liked me, I mean."

"It's just, um, Vriska keeps sort of saying things, that make me think she might be, um, interested, sort of, but I don't want to assume anything if that's not right, but I guess I thought you might be able to help, maybe. Or that she might have said something to you, maybe, so maybe that would help."

Kanaya swallows a tiny, irrational little pang of jealousy. No, Vriska hasn't said anything to her - maybe she's said something to _Terezi_ \- but hearing this from Tavros, it makes sense. Vriska does seem to show off more when he's around, making herself even louder and more the centre of attention than usual.

"She hasn't said anything," Kanaya says eventually. "But I think you might be right. The thing is, though, Tavros, do you _want_ her to feel like that about you? Do you feel the same way?"

Tavros is quiet for a minute.

"Um… well, no, not really, I don't think," he says eventually. "I mean, Vriska is very pretty, and everything, but I think, really, that I would prefer to just be her friend."

"I guess that's a little more difficult, then," Kanaya says. "But I suppose you should just try to be her friend, and if she does tell you she wants something more, you will just have to talk about it with her then."

"Yeah," he says. "I suppose that's all I can do."

They sit quietly for a minute. Kanaya thinks about picking up her book again.

"I wish I was as good with people as you are," Tavros says. "I get so nervous and I don't know what to say, uh, and I guess, it's like, I'm sort of always tired, and injured, and stuff, and I don't have anything cool to make up for it, like Terezi does, or Aradia, or you, because I think, even though I know you have a sleep disorder, that it's actually really cool, that your skin glows like that, if that's okay to say. But I feel like I'm just sort of annoying to everyone, most of the time."

"You're not annoying, Tavros," she says. "I like spending time with you. You just need to be a little more confident in yourself."

"Everyone says that. But I don't know how."

The sun is setting, and the garden is starting to grow a little darker and cooler. It's nice. There's nobody else out here, and suddenly Kanaya is glad she's here and glad that Tav is her friend and is here to talk to, and she tells him something she's never told anyone before.

"When I was little," she says, "and I couldn't sleep, I'd feel really alone and scared in the night, sometimes, and I used to pretend there was someone else there to look after me. Like… a sort of mother figure, I suppose, she was always very kind and warm and protective of me. I'd imagine she was there telling me I was okay, and I'd be fine, and to believe in myself and all that sort of stuff. It's embarrassing, really. Just a wish-fulfilment thing. But it used to help me. Maybe you should do something like that."

"Maybe," Tavros says, and they sit and watch the sunset together until it's dark.


	7. >Nepeta and Aradia: Make plans

It's been almost a year, and in a way Nepeta can't even remember anymore what it was like before the others showed up. And it's better now, for sure. There's Equius, who is basically her favourite person in the entire world, and there's her new friend Feferi, and there's Karkat who is cute as hell and she's pretty sure this is that whole first-crush thing she has going on here, except that most of the time she's too shy to talk to him, and probably he isn't interested anyway because, hello, mutant cat faced girl here, but it's still kind of nice being around him. 

 

Although also sometimes it's too loud with twice as many people around as before, and she gets kind of overloaded feeling and has to go sit in her room in silence until her brain clears. And Vriska is kind of mean to her sometimes, even though Terezi says she's really a good person once you get to know her. 

But, really, mostly it's pretty awesome and she's really pretty glad the other facility had to close down because it just feels kind of right, all of them being here together like this. And also, sharing a room with Aradia is awesome. Sometimes they stay up half the night talking, even though they're always exhausted and grumpy the next day.

'You know what we should do?' Aradia says suddenly, in the middle of a completely different conversation. 'We should have a party. A Hallowe'en party. With costumes and everything.'

'I mean,' Nepeta says, 'that would be fun, but the thing is, it’s July.'

‘Yeah, well, we can plan it in advance. I mean, we probably need to ask like forever in advance anyway.'

‘We could.' It’s not like there’s a lot else to do. Sometimes the staff half-heartedly try to teach classes and stuff, but you can tell their hearts aren’t in it. Nobody actually thinks the weird disabled mutant kids really need a high-school education. ‘But, like... where are we going to get costumes?'

'We'll make them.'

'Out of what?'

'I don't know, paper, old clothes. We'll just improvise, that'll be the fun part. It's not like they have to be brilliant.'

"I could make paper cat ears or something, I guess."

"Wow, Nepeta. Creative."

"Shut up. I like cats." At least, she thinks she would if she ever got to meet a real one.

"I mean, I bet we could get the kitchen staff to help us. They're usually nice."

"Like how they brought birthday cake that time."

"Yeah! Maybe they could get us some fruit punch or something and… maybe Halloween candy or something."

"For you, maybe."

"Right, yeah. You can have sausages on a stick." 

Nepeta doesn't eat anything that wasn't an animal at one point. Candy just tastes weird and gross to her. It's an obligate carnivore thing.

Still, the Halloween thing sounds fun, maybe. It would be nice to have something to look forward to, like a special thing. In here it can kind of start to feel like every day is the same, like they all just blur into each other.

"We should do it," she says finally. "Like, if the staff are okay with it, I guess."

"They're not going to care as long as we clean everything up, right? Half of them aren't even here at night."

It's true. Dr Scratch doesn't really care a whole lot what they do when he's not actually there, and the rest of the staff are mostly pretty nice about this sort of thing as long as they don't make too much noise or mess or anything.

"Okay," she says. "We should do it! Definitely."

"Yeah!" Aradia is quiet for a minute, in the dark. "Nepeta?"

"Yeah?"

"Think Sollux would be my date for it?"

Nepeta giggles. Yeah, she’d had a feeling about those two. "I knew it."

“Shut up.” Another moment’s silence. “So... you're saying they would?”


	8. [2008]

_*click*_

_DS   Okay, John, you can bring her in now._

_JE   Okay. See you later, little monster._

_TP   I'm not a monster! (Laughing) I'm a mutant._

_JE   See you later, little mutant._

_TP   Bye, John!_

_DS   Sit down, Terezi. This is Ms Quan. She's going to be working with you and the other children and she just wants to talk to you a little._

_WQ   Hi, Terezi. I just want to chat a little bit about your life here and what sort of medical problems or different abilities you might have from other children._

_TP   Okay. (Pause) I'm blind._

_DS   She is legally blind, yes. However, some of Terezi’s genes were modified to more closely resemble those you would find in canines or other animals which rely heavily on scent._

_WQ   So her sense of smell is enhanced?_

_DS   Dramatically so, yes. Terezi, please tell Ms Quan… oh, what she ate for breakfast, let’s say._

_TP   Why? That’s stupid._

_DS   Terezi._

_TP   Why does she need me to tell her that? She already knows. I mean, she’s the one who -_

_DS   Just do it, please, Terezi._

_TP Anyway, I can’t._

_DS   Terezi, you will stop playing silly games this instant._

_TP   I can’t because she didn’t eat anything!_

_WQ   She’s right. I didn’t have time this morning._

_DS   Ah. Well, you see then…_

_TP   And you’re wearing a cotton dress and imitation leather shoes and you use coconut shampoo. Will that do?_

_DS   Thank you, Terezi. As I was saying, her sense of smell is remarkable. She can actually use it to navigate her way around and to understand her surroundings. We’ve also had some success in teaching her to use echolocation._

_TP   Also I can find my way around this place pretty easy because, like, I’ve lived here forever._

_WQ   Do you enjoy living here, Terezi?_

_TP   It’s okay._

_WQ   Do you have friends here?_

_TP   Yeah, uh, Aradia, and Tavros, and… I was friends with Gamzee, but he died._

_WQ   Oh?_

_DS   It was very unfortunate. I’ll fill you in on the details later._


	9. > Aradia: Think about Sollux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INCOMING ARASOL. Is it pale? Is it red? Aradia has no idea either.
> 
> Sollux is actually intersex and non-binary/bigender in this AU. Because they're Sollux and why would they ever be just one thing if there's the option of two?

Here are all the things Aradia knows about Sollux:

\- They are fourteen, just a few months younger than she is

\- They prefer ‘they’ pronouns

\- They have been in the SGRUB project since they were born, as far as they know

\- They have heterochromia, one brown eye and one blue, because

\- They are a genetic chimera

\- Which means they don’t have spliced-in animal genes like Nepeta and Fish, or significantly altered human genes like Equius, it’s more like they are sort of two humans at once, genetically speaking

\- They also have neural tech, like her! It’s not as extensive as hers, but apparently it was added to correct some neurological problems they had when they were little

\- It causes problems sometimes, like sometimes they interfere with electrical or electronic equipment

\- It used to happen a lot especially when they got upset or angry, but now it’s only really occasionally, like when their heart rate is going really fast or something scares them and triggers the fight-or-flight brain response stuff

\- They were given the mobile phone partly so they could practice not crashing it, and partly as a bribe so they’d stop crashing the TV when Karkat was watching terrible romances on it

\- It doesn’t have a SIM card or any sort of internet access, so its just for playing games and taking pictures

\- They let her borrow it, and she took a cute selfie of the two of them in the garden

\- She really wishes she could print it out and maybe put it on her wall. She thought about asking one of the staff if they could do it, but the thing is, she sort of wants to do it without Sollux knowing, which would be kind of difficult

\- They are going to help her decorate the canteen for the Halloween party tomorrow

\- The two of them have been cutting out a pile of little paper ghosts and pumpkins all afternoon, while Nepeta draws cute little faces on each one and Feferi tapes them onto a piece of string so it’s like Halloween bunting

\- She’s maybe going to ask them to dance or something, probably

\- She really likes them

\- A lot


	10. [2007]

_*click*_

_DS     Yes... I mean, as you can obviously see, at this early stage the results are quite mixed. Some definite progress, I mean, some real success stories like the Megido girl and to some degree Pyrope, if it weren’t for the sight problems... But then you have children who, even though the genes are expressed in some way, they’re... it clearly needs more work._

_WQ     Yes._

_DS     Which of course, part of why they’re here, because there’s really no specialist medical care elsewhere that would be able to deal with children like this... And of course, it’s vital to be able to monitor them and collect data as they grow._

_WQ     Right, yes._

_DS     Eridan? Eridan, you can come in now. (Pause). Eridan, this is Ms Quan, and she’s going to be doing some work with you and the other children, and she would like to talk to you a little about your life here and your... medical problems._

_EA     Oh. Hi._

_WQ     Hi, Eridan. I just want to get to know you a little bit and find out about what sort of special abilities or special problems you might have, and what your life here is like._

_EA     (Pause). Okay. Are you a doctor?_

_WQ     Not like the other doctors who work here, no, I’m more interested in things like how your mind and brain are doing and whether you’re happy and feeling okay about things._

_EA     Oh. (Pause). Yeah, I’m okay. (Coughing)._

_DS     Eridan was part of an ongoing project... essentially trying to experiment with how the human body absorbs oxygen and how that could be altered. You’ll remember I mentioned the Makara child to you earlier._

_WQ     Yes. Poor little thing._

_DS     Eridan is very similar in a lot of ways. Somewhat more successful, though... His lungs do at least seem to be developing and growing along with him._

_WQ     So can you actually breathe in the water, Eridan?_

_EA     Yeah._

_WQ     Do you find that easy to do?_

_EA     Yeah, cause I’m a fish._

_DS     Eridan._

_EA     What?_

_DS     Ms Quan needs an accurate description of your problems, so I would appreciate it if you could be truthful with her._

_EA     But I do--_

_DS     Eridan._

_EA     Sometimes it hurts breathing but it hurts in the air too. I’m still better at breathing in the water than ANYONE ELSE._

_WQ     I’m sure you are. Do you enjoy it?_

_EA     Yeah. I’m a fish so I belong in water._

_WQ     But it’s hard for you to breathe, sometimes?_

_EA     Uh, sometimes._

_DS     Eridan actually has fairly severe respiratory problems. We were able to alter his genes such that--_

_EA     They put fish genes in me._

_DS     Actually, no, this was a much simpler process. We were just slightly altering some dormant genes in humans - ones which would have at one point in our evolution resulted in the creation of gills. Eridan has both gills and lungs, but unfortunately both are underdeveloped._

_WQ     So he has breathing problems?_

_DS     Unfortunately so, yes. It can make him quite ill at times - nothing life-threatening, in his case, but it’s clearly something that needs more work if it’s a direction we want to continue with._

_WQ     So what do you like to do here, Eridan? Do you go swimming?_

_EA     Yeah, uh... (coughing)._

_WQ     Anything else?_

_EA     I like reading sometimes. I’ve got the Harry Potter books._

_WQ     Are those your favourites?_

_EA     Yeah! I like the magic stuff. And Hogwarts._

_WQ     Do you have friends here, Eridan?_

_EA     Uh..._

_DS     Eridan is a bit of a solitary child._


	11. > Eridan: Socialise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post the Halloween party chapter on Halloween, and then I forgot because my memory sucks ass.

Okay, yeah, sure, it was a nice idea doing this Halloween shit or whatever and everyone’s really excited about it, but Eridan’s starting to wonder if he can just make an excuse and stay in his room all night and read the Dragonlance Chronicles for the five hundredth time. Cause like, he is tired now after all this, and his fucking stupid lungs hurt, and also, the thing is, his costume looks fucking stupid.

“Everyone’s costume looks fucking stupid,” his roommate Karkat says. “That’s the whole point. It is a fucking stupid costume party featuring fucking stupid costumes built entirely from toilet paper and plastic coffee cups. Have you seen Terezi, for God’s sake? She just taped some googly eyes to a hoodie and wrote DRAGON on a name sticker. Compared to her you’re practically Heroes of Cosplay.”

Eridan makes a non-committal sound and pulls the blanket cape closer around himself. 

“Also, I’d like to point out, you are currently having your little self-conscious tantrum in the direction of a person whose entire crab costume consists of a cardboard semi-circle painted red and pinned to his t-shirt, and a pair of plastic castanets someone dug out of the bottom of the extremely sparsely equipped toy chest.”

“Looks good, though, Kar,” Eridan mumbles. 

“It’s not even the right goddamn species of crab. They’re _horseshoe_ crab genes.”

“Yeah, well.” Eridan fusses with his hair in the mirror a little more. “I look like the worst fuckin’ superhero in the universe. _And_ Vris is just gonna make Aquaman jokes.”

“Who the fuck cares what Serket thinks?”

“Vris is... she’s okay.” Eridan doesn’t really mean this. What he actually means is, “Vriska kissed me in the changing rooms once, and even though she laughed at me afterwards and said she did it for a bet, it’s still the most attention I’ve ever got from a girl, or even a guy, or whatever, and I don’t want her to laugh at me anymore,” but that’s not a conversation he feels up to having with Karkat right now.

“Serket is not _okay_ ,” Karkat says. “For God’s sake, that’s the last direction you want to go in for... anything. Stick to moping over Feferi, if you absolutely have to.”

“I’m not... doin’ that over Fef.” This would be more convincing if he wasn’t blushing, violently, all the way up to his hairline. Ugh.

“Okay. Whatever, tragic romance hero, let’s go and make some sort of lame, pitiful attempt to pretend we’re ordinary kids with ordinary lives attending a fun and exciting Halloween party with our fun and exciting friends.” He grabs Eridan by the cape, and stomps out of the room with Eridan shuffling awkwardly after him.

\--

It’s not that bad, though, actually. Like yeah, it’s just the canteen, and it’s just them, but it’s sort of fun doing something different, and Nep and crew have obviously been working pretty hard on decorating it. There’s little cut out skulls and pumpkins and ghosts everywhere and a big bowl full of ‘punch’, which is just orange squash with some bits of apple floating in it, but whatever, they tried. And they’ve found some sort of Halloween special show on the radio so there’s cheesy-spooky music playing, and Fef is dancing by herself in the middle of the floor, so like... that’s nice. Just watching her, like, being happy, that’s... it’s something. She’s wearing a pink and green skirt with ribbons sewn around the edge of it - she’s supposed to be a jellyfish - and they’re fluttering out around her as she dances.

Sol comes up after a few minutes and grabs her hands and starts dancing with her, but whatever. They’re just friends, right? God, he hopes they’re just friends. Not like he’s got a chance anyway, but watching her being with Sol instead, that’d... yeah. He does not want that.

“Hey, Fish.” Aradia settles into the chair next to him. She had wanted to dress as a ghost, do the full-on eye-holes-in-a-sheet thing, but the staff wouldn’t let her cut holes in any of the sheets so she’d wrapped one around herself like a toga instead and was telling anyone who’d listen that she was the ghost of an Ancient Roman. “Cute costume. What’s the dying swan face for, though?” She looks over to the dance floor. “Oh. Hey, I’m pretty sure they’re just best friends. I mean, I hope so, cause you know...” She grins and looks at the floor. 

Eridan doesn’t say anything, because he is too busy wondering if EVERYONE knows about his feelings for Feferi. Not that there is anything to know. Not really. But, God, can’t a guy fall quietly in hopeless unrequited love in peace round here?

“Tell you what,” she says, completely ignoring his inner fuckin’ turmoil and valiant attempts to not look like he cares about Fef or anything else or ANYTHING, “I’m gonna go cut in. Then you know... she’ll be free. If you like.” She grins at him, and then just heads straight over there, gives Fef a little hug, grabs Sol’s hands and starts doing this stupid twirly dance, spinning under their arm and giggling as her fake toga flutters out around her. Fef goes back to dancing by herself. God, she’s so pretty.

He can see Aradia looking at him over Sol’s shoulder, mouthing GO ON THEN when she thinks nobody else can see, and for a minute he thinks he’s going to stand up and walk up there himself and just take Fef’s hands the way Sol did and just dance with them and he’ll be happy and part of things and everything will be...

Nah.

He doesn’t know how to dance.

Also his lungs still hurt.

He’s just going to sit here a little longer. Maybe later. Maybe.


	12. > Aradia and Sollux: Be adorable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Incoming arasol! But mostly just cute moonlight feelings jams.

It’s too cold to be sitting outside, really, but they’re sitting in the garden anyway. It gives her an excuse to shuffle a little closer to Sollux, and hope that maybe they’ll put an arm around her. Or maybe she should do it? She just doesn’t want to come on too strong and creep them out or anything.

The sky’s clear. They can see the stars. Aradia points upwards to the little straight line of three stars above them.

‘It’s Orion,’ she says, ‘look.’

“Orion.” Sollux tips their head back and looks up. “God, I can’t get over how weird it is being allowed outside. I can’t believe they even let you out here at night.”

“Not like we could exactly escape.” The walls are much, much too high and smooth for anyone to ever climb. And topped with spikes and broken glass, just in case.

“Yeah. But you can still, you know... I guess it was a bit more tightly controlled where we were. I’m glad I’m here now.”

Aradia decides this is definitely the right moment, and takes a deep breath, and puts an arm around Sollux’s shoulders. She’s so nervous that it’ll be a horribly bad idea and they’ll move away or freeze up or just tell her to stop or something. But they don’t. They sort of move a tiny bit closer, actually.

What now?

“I loved your costume, by the way,” she says, for lack of any better dialogue options.

“AA,” Sollux says, “it was a yellow shirt with black stripes drawn on in marker.”

“Still cute. You make a cute bee.”

“I like bees,” Sollux says. “I saw a documentary about them once when I was little. They have this really interesting social structure. Honeybees, anyway. I mean, there’s lots of different kinds... I got a book about them too, a few birthdays back. Still have it. I’ve probably read it a million times.”

“You’re such a nerd,” she says, but she says it in a way that she hopes will be obviously affectionate and not-insulting.

“ _You’re_ such a nerd. I mean, an ancient Roman ghost?”

“They wouldn’t let me cut holes in the sheet, okay?”

“Shush, it’s cute. And it would’ve hidden your face that way. I like your face.”

Aradia’s not entirely sure what to say to that - that definitely sounds like a good sign, right? - and in the end she settles for a small, quiet, “Thanks. I like your face, too,” and she wraps her arm a little tighter around Sollux’s shoulder and they both just sit there in the dark, being quiet and nervous and close-together in silence, for a little while.


	13. > Tavros: Be confident

Okay, so Tavros had been pretty anxious about the other kids arriving, back when it happened, but he has to admit, there are some really good things about having more people around. Like he actually sort of likes his roommate, kind of, even though it was pretty weird at first sharing a space. And also, Equius is kind of large, and tends to take up all of the available space in any room, and also he is a lot stronger than basically anyone else Tavros has ever met, which is fine, but also, really clumsy. Which, like, why would you put the guy who breaks everything into the room with the kid with the brittle bones, really? Does Dr. Scratch actually just hate him, maybe?

Although it hasn’t really been so bad, actually. Okay, Equius did stand on his foot last month, and broke three of his toes. But Tavros breaks toes and fingers, like, all the time, and also Equius did say sorry, so that’s okay, probably. And like, when Tavros had to start using crutches to get around, because of the broken foot issue, Equius asked to ‘look at’ them, and then he unscrewed a couple of things and rearranged them and bent something sideways and handed them back saying ‘try them now’, and okay, yeah, now they are a _lot_ more comfortable to use. So on balance, he is not a bad roommate at all. Even though sometimes he says kind of weird things about Aradia, like asking Tavros a bunch of questions about her and saying she’s too good to be shut up in here like this, which, yes, is true, obviously, but also, is he kind of implying that it’s okay for the rest of them to be here? Because, that’s kind of insulting, a bit, right?

He’s super nice to Nepeta, though, and like super protective over her, so that’s definitely good.

So, yeah, there’s that. But there is also the Vriska thing, and like, Kanaya’s advice made sense, but the thing with Vriska is, she never really came out with it and asked him if he wanted to be, like, something, she just sort of decided they already were. Which makes it hard to actually say no, because if you never get asked the question in the first place, like, when do you say it? He can’t exactly turn around to her in front of everyone when she comes and sits practically on him in the common room, and say, No, Vriska, you are not my girlfriend, please sit further away from me, because this is really uncomfortable.

So he just sort of lets it happen, mostly, kind of, and anyway, maybe he should be glad she is paying attention to him, because who else would, right? Like, even if he ever gets out of here, he is weird looking with weird mutant shoulderblade wings and spends half his life in a wheelchair or in bed or whatever, so, it’s not like he exactly has an awful lot to offer any prospective girlfriends, or boyfriends, or whatever.

But the thing is, he does not feel _that way_ about her, even though she can be a lot of fun to be around, sometimes, the fact is that he just does not actually want to kiss her.

So when she catches him alone in the corridor by the coffee machine, still limping from the Equius foot incident and trying to balance his crutches and his cup of hot chocolate somehow, and she says, ‘Hey, you,’ and slides her arm around his waist, he is kind of caught off guard. But also, he tells himself, this is a good time, to try to be confident and say no to her!

‘Vriska,’ he says, ‘uh, no, please, don’t--’ but she has already brought her face in close to his and then she’s kissing him. And, nope, definitely, this is still not really doing a whole lot of anything for him, and he doesn’t _want_ it, so he tries to push her away, just gently, except he kind of wobbles a little and the hot chocolate he was holding drops to the floor and splashes onto her jeans, and she pulls back sharply.

‘Fine,’ she says, ‘fuck you, Nitram,’ and, oh God, she kind of looks like, is she going to _cry?_ But then she just shoves him away instead, hard, and turns around and practically runs down the corridor and even though he’s pretty sure she must have heard him lose his balance and fall, she doesn’t look back.


	14. > Aradia: Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small content warning for minor violence, and for this chapter being not exactly Vriska-positive. Aradia isn't feeling very sympathetic towards her right now.

Tavros has broken his left leg in three places and his right leg in one. Petra and Adam both say they don’t know when he will be able to walk again, although Petra says she is confident that he almost certainly _will_ able to, at some point.

Aradia has never been so fucking angry in her entire life.

Tavros tells her what happened, in a very brief, abbreviated format, half-asleep on morphine and of course blaming himself all the way through, it was his fault, he should have talked to her earlier, he should have gone along with it, he shouldn’t have pushed her, the hot drink must have hurt her, it’s his fault.

Aradia sits and holds his hand and reads to him and fucking seethes inside at the fucking nerve of her, this fucking girl, this fucking person who thinks she can just come into their lives and decide she can have whatever she wants and hurts people when she doesn’t get it.

‘It’s not your fault,’ she says over and over. ‘She shouldn’t have done that. She should have asked. She shouldn’t have pushed you when you were on _crutches_ , for God’s sake.’ She doesn’t know how much of it is getting through to him, but she can’t bear sitting here listening to her best friend blame himself for being fucking assaulted.

“I’m going to kill her,” she says to Nepeta, in their room, at night, and Nepeta frets and says vague soothing things and says that _Equius_ (fucking Equius, always with the fucking Equius these days) thinks it is a bad idea to escalate things further, which, whatever, let’s all totally take advice from the creepy guy who can’t put his goddamn pants on without breaking something.

Vriska is not getting away with this.

She thinks, briefly, of talking to the staff, but she dismisses it. That’s... just not something they do. Ever. No matter how fucking horrible someone is, you can’t just go around running to the staff, because... well, there’s only them here in their little medical facility world, and if they start forming alliances with the staff and against each other, then the whole thing kind of falls apart. They’ve only really got each other, and it’s something they don’t even really talk about, but they all know: no. You just don’t do it. Tavros told them he slipped and fell, and that’s what they’ll all stick with. This is something Aradia has to deal with herself.

So she lies awake and she plans quietly and she doesn’t tell anyone, but then at breakfast the next morning, the staff out of the room, she walks quickly to Vriska as she’s getting up from the table with Terezi (oh, and fuck Terezi for still talking to her), and without warning she hits her in the stomach as hard as she can. With her metal-and-plastic hand, not the flesh-and-blood one. She’s never hit anyone before, not for real, but from the way Vriska doubles over she’s pretty sure she got it more or less right.

“Don’t ever fucking touch him again,” she says. “Ever.” And then - some sort of impulse, she doesn’t know what - she leans over and snaps the eyepatch off Vriska’s head. What the fuck’s she got under there that’s worth hiding anyway? How can it be anything weirder than anything else in here?

An insect eye, it turns out - black and faceted and glittery. For a moment, Aradia actually finds herself thinking it looks kind of awesome, before she pulls herself back together and remembers what she’s doing. She shoves the eyepatch into her pocket, turns around, leaves Vriska standing there with Terezi fussing over her, and goes back to her room. She’ll tell Tavros later what she did, and he’ll probably be horrified, but he’ll know that she at least didn’t entirely get away with it.

“Do you think she’s going to leave you alone now?’ Nepeta says, later that night. ‘Like, now you stood up to her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Aradia says. ‘Maybe.’ She suspects not, but who knows? Maybe it’ll work that way and now she’s like, in charge, like in some sort of TV prison drama thing. Maybe Vriska will realise she can’t treat people that way and they’ll all settle down and live happily ever after. Maybe she’ll just move on to picking on Fish or something. Who knows? She just knows she couldn’t have let it go without doing _something_.


	15. > Terezi: Fret

Yeah, this is awkward as all hell, it really is. Vriska has been such a great friend and roommate! But also, Aradia is a good friend and they’re basically siblings, and it’s super awkward that they’re pretty much not talking now. But, all Vriska really did was just try to ask someone out, right? And there was some sort of confusion and Tavros slipped when he pushed her away, or whatever. It sucks he got hurt! She is not denying that! But you can’t just go round beating people up over it. She could smell the bruising on Vriska for days. What the hell, Aradia.

Still though, it’s really fucking awkward listening to Vriska just rant about how awful Tavros and Aradia are, because Terezi still likes them both, and why can she not just be left out of this, honestly. She starts trying to change the subject when it comes up, and waits for it to blow over. Because things always do. God knows there’s been enough fights before, all of them cooped up in a few rooms in here, but then THEY GET OVER IT, right? They have to. Otherwise living here would suck even more.

Whatever. She can wait, probably. She takes to hanging out in Eridan and Karkat’s room a lot, since they don’t really seem to have sides in this stupid fight. Plus, Karkat is kinda fun, once you get past the grumpiness! She sorta likes how freaked out he gets when she leans in to smell him - or pretends to get, really. She can, in fact, smell that there’s no actual fear there. Not that much anger really, either, she thinks. He’s just loud and has a short fuse and likes to rant. It’s pretty fun to listen to. And Eridan likes him also. Like he actually talks sometimes, although quite a lot of the time he just lies there flopped on his bed reading the shitty fantasy novels that Ms Lalonde brings in for him, but it’s a friendly, laid-back sort of just-lying-there, which is probably about the best you’ll get out of Fish.

But time passes and Vriska seems to sort of calm down about it, a bit, and although the two of them still aren’t talking to each other, not even ‘pass the salt’, the constant horrible tension starts to dissolve a bit. Like at least Aradia doesn’t smell so violently furious every time they pass in the corridor, and Vriska isn’t holding forth about how much this place sucks and she hates everyone except Terezi on quite such a regular basis anymore, and THANK GOD for that, Terezi thinks, because what the fuck is she supposed to do about any of it? She did not ask for this. All she did was take a girl who had just been beat up back to her room, that’s it, she was just going for basic human decency, not picking a side in some epic cosmic battle. Ugh. Teenage highschool drama: it sucks even when you’re not actually in anything remotely resembling a high school.

And then just as things are a little calmer, just when people might maybe start to act like normal mutant beings again, Dr Scratch shows up and tells Aradia it’s time for her regularly scheduled you-got-too-big-for-your-robot-organs surgery. Sucks to be Aradia. Still, maybe this isn’t such bad timing? Maybe her being out of commission for a bit will help her and Vriska chill the fuck out and move on, not seeing each other every day and all. Maybe. Yeah. That’d be good.


	16. > Aradia: Upgrade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aradia is okay! ...so far.

It happens, every so often. Artificial organs don’t grow with her body the way flesh-and-blood ones would, so every once in a while they just take them out and put some new, improved, better-fitting ones into her. It used to be more often when she was little; now, it’s every couple of years, and she’ll probably only need one or two more after this, with luck.  
  
It’s never fun, though. Waking up after you’ve had your sternum and ribcage pretty much ripped open tends to be... an interesting experience. And it takes a while before she’s strong enough to stand and walk around and do regular stuff again, so until then she’s usually stuck on bed-rest. Which is just so, so boring. They push a TV into her room and give her a couple of books and leave her to get on with it. It sucks.  
  
And it’s such bad timing, because things were maybe kinda just starting to happen with Sollux, and Tavros is still mostly stuck in bed and she needs to take care of him, and she doesn’t want to be out of commission in case Vriska starts shit with him again, you know? So she eyerolls and complains, and when that - unsurprisingly - doesn’t get her anywhere, she swallows her pride and just straight-up begs.  
  
“Please,” she says. “Can it wait a couple of months?”  
  
“No,” says Dr. Scratch, and doesn’t elaborate any further. Ms Quan is a little more patient, when Aradia goes to her the next day to ‘discuss her feelings’, but not any more helpful.  
  
“My records say it’s been almost three years, Aradia,” she says. “You grow a lot between twelve and fifteen, you know.”  
  
“I haven’t grown that much.” She hasn’t. She’s still barely five feet tall. That’s nothing.  
  
“You’re becoming a young woman,” Ms Quan says, and Aradia tries hard not to roll her eyes at the after-school-special-ness of it all. “Your body is going through a lot of changes, and your synthetic organs are already under strain. You know this is very new technology, and we need to err on the side of caution.”  
  
“It’s just... not a good time.”  
  
Ms Quan makes a noncommittal, sympathetic noise. But she doesn’t say anything actually helpful, and Aradia knows she’s not even going to bother talking to Dr. Scratch. There’s basically nothing she can do, and it sucks, and she hates everything. Though even she has to admit that she probably doesn’t want to die of cyborg-heart failure.  
  
So the day comes round, and they stick her full of needles and drips and she tries not to panic, even though it’s still seriously fucking scary every time. Like, after all, they are basically killing her and taking half her vital organs out and then replacing them and bringing her back. She always gets scared that the bringing-her-back part won’t go to plan.   
  
“It will be fine,” Nepeta says, and squeezes her hand, and Sollux hovers worriedly, and Equius kind of stands there being huge and silent, which is his thing, she guesses, but then he mumbles something about Tavros sending his love, which is really sweet - and then they wheel her away, and the next thing she knows she’s waking up in the recovery room full of even more tubes, and everything hurts, and she has a few new scars.  
  
Everything went to plan, Dr. Scratch tells her. New organs installed, old ones gone to... wherever old synthetic organs go to, she guesses. Do they recycle them? Or keep them in case a twelve-year-old with a bad heart shows up someday?  
  
She also notices she has a patch of hair shaved off, and some stitches in her head that she wasn’t expecting, and she looks confused as she reaches up to touch it.  
  
“Just a few tweaks to your neural tech,” he says. “Nothing serious. Think of it as keeping the software up to date.” Which... they hadn’t told her about that, but whatever, when do they ever tell any of them anything about anything, and she’s too tired and sore and full of morphine to argue, and instead she just lets herself drift back to sleep.  
  
When she wakes up again Sollux is sitting by her bedside, which is both really nice, and sort of slightly worrying, because she looks absolutely terrible and what if she was drooling or talking in her sleep about something embarrassing, or whatever, but they’re smiling and don’t seem to mind her being covered in tubes and stitches and bald patches, and then they pick up her hand, the one without the drip in, and squeeze it.  
  
“Hey, AA,” they say. “Brought you this.”  
  
And they put a little card - a folded-over piece of paper, on which they have drawn several bees buzzing around some yellow flowers - on her bedside table, and smile at her, and it’s basically the cutest thing she has ever seen. And she drifts off back to sleep thinking about how _incredibly cute_ their mismatched eyes are.


	17. > Nepeta and Equius: Feelings jam

Nepeta’s room feels too quiet without Aradia in it. Even though she’d slept on her own for years before the newer kids arrived, she’s got so used to company over the last year or two that it suddenly feels too big, too empty, and the first night Aradia’s away in the medical facility, she can’t sleep. She lies there and tosses and turns and counts sheep and tries to tell herself a cute story to take her mind off things, but nothing works. Eventually she gives up, gets up, wanders into the common room to see what’s on TV at 1am.

The answer is ‘not very much’, but that doesn’t matter as it turns out because Equius is already in there! Which she’s really happy about. Like if there’s one person in the world right now who could make her feel better... there he is.

“Equius?” she says, and he looks up. “Can’t sleep either?”

“Tavros had a nightmare,” he says. “He’s still in a lot of pain. I believe he’s sleeping again now, but I couldn’t seem to drift back off.”

“I couldn’t sleep at all.” She comes and sits down next to him on the couch and rests her head on his shoulder. “It’s so quiet without Aradia, it’s weird.”

“Aradia,” he says, and Nepeta can feel him shift slightly, awkwardly. “Yes. Is she - I understand the surgery went smoothly?”

“She’s fine,” Nepeta says. “Don’t worry.” It’s so sweet that he worries about Aradia. And also the huge, painfully obvious crush he has on her. That’s kind of sweet too. Nepeta sort of hopes it works out, because how cool would that be, both of her best friends together? Although she has a feeling Aradia’s interest right now is, uh, elsewhere. 

Equius relaxes a bit. “I’m glad to hear it. She - it would be terrible if anything...”

Nepeta ruffles his hair. “Shoosh.” And he does. “I know you, uh... like her, Equius.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, and Nepeta wonders if she should’ve just kept her mouth shut. “I just think she... she’s remarkable. She is an amazing feat of engineering and any damage to that would be...”

“Uh huh,” says Nepeta, “and also you want to smooch her,” and finally Equius starts laughing, and she’s relieved that she can always seem to make him laugh, make him relax a tiny bit for once.

“She is very, very pretty,” he says, “as miracles of engineering go.”

“You’re allowed to have feelings for people, you know,” she tells him. “I’m sure Ms Quan will tell you all about how normal and natural it is now we’re all growing up.”

Equius snorts. “Because this is absolutely something I’d discuss with the staff.”

“Yeah, I know. I wouldn’t, either.”

Equius turns to look at her. “Are you suggesting you... have something to discuss?” 

Nepeta is silent, for a moment. “... Yeah.”

Equius puts his arm around her, awkwardly, but comfortingly. “Well, if you ever wanted to talk to someone who is not staff... I’m here.”

Nepeta sighs, flops against his shoulder. “It’s Karkat.” Like everyone doesn’t probably already know. Like it isn’t completely and utterly goddamn pointless even thinking about it. “I know it’s never happening. I just... I think he’s cute.”

“He’s not good enough for you,” Equius says. 

“Yeah,” she says, “he is.” She sighs. “But it doesn’t matter because my face is all fucked up and nobody is ever gonna want to kiss it.” She wriggles her flat cat-like nose, runs her tongue over her pointed fangs. 

“Your face isn’t... messed up,” he says. “It’s unique. It’s who you are. And who you are is definitely too good to waste her time on Vantas.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing,” Equius says. “I suppose. But very few people are good enough for you. Besides, he’s so... loud. Always has been. It’s irritating.”

“Honestly,” Nepeta says, “it’s kind of... endearing.” She knows she’s blushing. 

Equius sighs. “You really are taken with him, aren’t you.” She sighs and wriggles her shoulders and shrugs. “We’re both as ridiculous as each other, I suppose.” And she nods and snuggles closer into his shoulder, lets herself relax against him, closes her eyes, and when she opens them again it’s past eight in the morning and time to go for breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Equius totally pronounced it 'abso100tely'.


	18. > Aradia: Recuperate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I think we all knew this wasn't going to go smoothly.

It’s been a few days, and while it still hurts to sit up, or laugh, or move too much, she’s starting to feel a little bit better. The stitches are hurting less and itching more, which is always a good sign, and she’s managing to eat solid food at least some of the time now. It still sucks, and it’s still really, really boring being in bed all day, but... at least people are keeping her company. Nepeta hangs out there a lot, and watches bad television shows with her while they talk about everything and nothing. Plus Nepeta goes and visits Tavros too, and brings Aradia cute little notes from him, and - when she can sit up long enough to write - takes her answers back to him as well. It’s adorable. Her own personal mail delivery service.

And Sollux is there, like, all the time. They’re just... they are so sweet to her. Like they keep bringing her drinks and chocolate from the machines, and reading to her when she can’t sit up enough for watching tv, and you know... holding her hand and stuff, when everything hurts, or she feels sick from the pain meds. And talking. They talk, quietly, whenever she’s feeling strong enough, about everything they can think of. Sollux tells her about growing up in the other facility, about how he and Feferi were always close but became best friends when eight-year-old Feferi started figuring out she was a girl, and they’d formed a little trans-kids-against-the-world club of two. She tells them about how she and Tavros and Nepeta used to play their own made-up dungeons and dragons games, and how Eridan used to play before he went all adolescent and sulky. She falls asleep on their shoulder once, sitting up, and when she wakes up they’re still there, trying to play a game on their phone without disturbing her.

Sollux is just bringing her a glass of water when Vriska throws the door open. Aradia hasn’t spoken to her since the... incident, but Vriska doesn’t seem like she cares about that right now.

“Fuck,” she says. “Aren’t there any doctors in here? I kinda need someone, like, now.”

“What is it?” Sollux hasn’t been talking to her much either, but she looks scared to death.

“Can you come with me? It’s Feferi, I think she got locked outside or something. I can’t wake her up, I think she needs to get inside? She’s really cold.”

“FUCK.” Sollux is on their feet in about half a second, panic all over their face, running for the door. “She shouldn’t even be fucking out there, it’s freezing out-- she can’t GET cold-- how the fuck, Vriska, call someone, I don’t know, is she breathing? Did you check?” And they’re gone, running for the doors to the garden, dropping the water glass on the floor as they go, before they even have time to see Aradia drop back down on the bed, or hear her heart monitor crashing and bleeping and finally settling into a long, high-pitched whine.

“Well,” says Vriska, “that was easy,” and she turns to leave. Arrivederci, Megido.


	19. [2007]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for transphobia/transmisogyny in this chapter, specifically Doc Scratch misgendering a young trans kid and ignoring her correcting him.
> 
> If you don't feel like reading that, this chapter is skippable; it's mostly Feferi talking about how she's cold-blooded and needs to stay warm.

_*click*_   
  
_DS    So the next on the list is... Peixes, isn’t it? I’ll bring him in._   
  
_WQ    Okay._   
  
_DS    Feferi? Come in and sit down. (Pause). You’ll remember the conversation you had with the Ampora child..._   
  
_FP    What’s an ampora child?_   
  
_DS    Never mind, Feferi. Anyway, as I was saying, Feferi was another in the same series of experiments. A considerably more successful one, I have to say. I think the approach we’ve used with him has been much more successful._   
  
_FP    Oh, uh, I’m not a him._   
  
_DS    Feferi, enough. This is Ms Quan, and she’s going to be working with you here in the facility, so please tell her about yourself._   
  
_FP    Hi, Ms Quan. I’m Feferi and I’m eight and I live here and, uh... I like drawing, and swimming, and I play games and stuff, and..._   
  
_WQ    Hi, Feferi, it’s lovely to meet you._   
  
_FP    Thank you!_   
  
_DS    Feferi is actually entirely amphibious. He’s capable of breathing in both fresh and salt water, but without the respiratory problems we’d been previously struggling with._   
  
_FP     I’m a she though._   
  
_DS    I’m sorry, this is something he’s been saying lately._   
  
_WQ    No, no, that’s - I’m happy to talk with Feferi about that._   
  
_DS    Feferi, perhaps we could focus on your medical conditions._   
  
_FP    Uh, I, I can breathe in water, and I’m... I get cold too easy._   
  
_DS    Feferi’s body can’t regulate its own temperature the way it should, so we have to ensure that the temperature in the facility is kept consistent. Still, it’s a small drawback in comparison to Ampora and Makara’s problems._   
  
_WQ    So you have to make sure to keep warm, Feferi?_   
  
_FP    Yeah. Otherwise I get kinda sick._   
  
_WQ    Does that happen a lot?_   
  
_FP    Not really... Sometimes like if the pool’s too cold and I stay in it too long, I get shaky and can’t get warm._   
  
_WQ    What would you have to do if that happens?_   
  
_FP    Tell one of the staff. And they give me hot drinks and a hot bath... It feels weird breathing hot water though. I like the pool, it’s just like, warm._   
  
_WQ    Do you enjoy swimming in there?_   
  
_FP    Yeah! It’s really fun. I can swim really fast._   
  
_WQ    Is it easy for you to breathe underwater?_   
  
_FP    Yeah, it just kind of happens on its own, I guess?_   
  
_WQ    Wow. That’s pretty amazing._   
  
_DS    Yes, we’re very pleased generally with the results on this one._   
  
_FP    I’m going to go in the real sea one day and meet all the fishes and whales and stuff!_   
  
_WQ    That sounds like fun._   
  
_FP    I like cuttlefishes the best._


	20. > Nepeta: Worry

Here’s what happened, then, as close as Nepeta can manage to put it together after everything’s over:

Sollux had run outside, and then not finding Feferi anywhere - you know, seeing as she was safe and well and indoors and had been sitting watching the TV the entire time, completely unaware of what Vriska was doing - run back in to Aradia’s room in confusion, found her unconscious and convulsing, called for the doctors.

Dr Scratch had come in, thrown Sollux out, ended up taking Aradia into surgery immediately, then into intensive care, where they were saying she was ‘stable’. But she’d stopped breathing for too long, and for a while nobody knew how bad that was going to mess her brain up.

When she woke up she was apparently able to speak and remember her name, so she wasn’t going to be, like, brain-dead, but nobody is allowed to visit her yet so Nepeta doesn’t really know how she’s doing beyond that.

Sollux is especially not allowed to visit her. The doctors don’t know what Vriska did, they think that Sollux just made a mistake and got upset, and their electronics-fucking-up powers just kind of happened right when Aradia was really vulnerable to it. So Sollux isn’t allowed to see her until Further Notice.

All of the kids know what happened, though. Feferi’s been in their room with Sollux basically the whole time, because they won’t come out of it or talk to anyone else really, but she’s explained the whole thing to the rest of them, or at least everything she could get out of Sollux. It is so fucked up. 

Terezi packed up her stuff and moved into Kanaya’s room the same evening. She didn’t actually ask the staff first - or even Kanaya - but nobody really had the energy to object, and Kanaya shrugs and says it’s fine with her. After all, Terezi’s hardly going to be bothered by her lighting the place up at night.

The next night, Nepeta decides that if Terezi can do it, she can too, and Equius moves into Aradia’s empty bed. Yeah, whatever, technically boys and girls aren’t allowed to share rooms. But what the staff don’t know won’t hurt them, and Equius is careful to sneak back in the morning. She just can’t deal with being alone right now. She braids his long hair, and they talk about all the crazy shit going on, and then they talk about silly things instead because they really need a distraction from wondering when Aradia’s coming back, and how much of her is going to be left when she does. 

All they can do right now is wait, anyway.


	21. > Mituna: Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to veer off onto a completely different plotline!

God he is so fucking bored. Boring. It is so goddamn fucking stupid boring today because the tv is just showing some stupid shopping channel and nobody’s come in to change it for him for hours. And there’s no books or paper for drawing on anymore, nobody brought them this week. It’s probably like, hours until someone brings him lunch and he can get them to change the tv over. Boring. Ugh. Maybe he should just actually watch the shopping thing?

He sits on the bed and chews on one of his fingernails and stares through the perspex barrier at the small tv screen, and the lady on it who is trying to sell... what, like, something for cooking eggs? Eggs are gross. And like he is never going to cook anything, ever. Who cares. Go fuck yourself, egg lady. And he’s hungry and irritated and starting to get one of his headaches. Maybe if he rings the bell someone will come? With painkillers at least? Maybe they can change the channel too. Or put a movie on for him or something, even one of the ones he’s seen a million times, that would be okay. 

Anything would be okay that isn’t just sitting here waiting.

Like, he should be good at waiting. It’s all he can ever remember doing, pretty much? That and drawing and watching tv and being tested, which sometimes sucks and involves needles but sometimes it’s kinda fun and they ask him to draw, or repeat words, or try to remember stuff or whatever. At least it’s sort of interesting when they do that.

Maybe he’s just gonna take a nap until lunch time. Naps are pretty good for making time pass. Probably, anyway? Not like he’s got a clock in here. But the tv tells him the time, sometimes.

Whatever. He lays back down on the bed and closes his eyes.


	22. > Tavros: Try

Finally, after a week or so, Aradia is ‘stable’ enough for visitors and Tavros finally gets to see her again.  
  
Here are the good things: she’s not dead. She’s breathing on her own, now, which is good. She knows who he is. She knows who everyone is, and where she is, and what happened to her. She can talk in full sentences again now. She might be able to eat by herself soon.  
  
Here are the bad things: she’s absolutely nothing like Aradia right now and it’s kind of upsetting.  
  
When he comes through the door, which is kind of difficult, in his wheelchair and all, she turns her head to look at him but she doesn’t talk or say hi or even smile. He sits by her bedside and asks how she feels, and she says okay, she guesses, and doesn’t offer any more information. And he doesn’t know what to do, and like, maybe she does not want visitors right now? Maybe she is too tired? So he asks if she needs to sleep and she says no, not really, and then they lapse into silence again.  
  
“Maybe,” he says, “uh, I could read to you, or something? I don’t think we had finished that book that I started, uh, you know, before you... Do you want to hear some more of it?”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“Do you want... anything? Like, anything that I can do, or get, or ask the staff for, I guess, if it’s something that I can’t get myself, or...”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
More silence. This is sort of really awful.   
  
“Um,” he says, “uh, Sollux misses you a lot, uh, and they would definitely have come to visit you, except they aren’t allowed to right now, because of the staff being worried that, uh, it might happen again, but they definitely wanted me to say hi for them.”  
  
“Okay.”   
  
Tavros wonders if maybe she is mad at him, because maybe, sort of, this is his fault? She doesn’t seem angry, she just seems sort of _nothing_ , but he’s still kind of worried. Because of the stuff that happened with him and Vriska, being basically the reason all this has happened. But he doesn’t want to ask her right now, because it really does not seem like she wants any sort of deep emotional discussion about anything right now. Or, even, any discussion at all.  
  
He doesn’t know what to do.  
  
“Are you in pain?” he asks, finally. Maybe that’s what it is.  
  
“Not really,” she says. “Morphine drip.”  
  
“Are you...” He doesn’t know what else to ask. “Aradia, you just seem sort of, very... is something else wrong, that I don’t know about?”  
  
“I’m just tired.” She turns over in the bed, away from him. The conversation seems to be over.  
  
He has no idea what he’s going to tell the others.


	23. > Vriska: Regret nothing

Of course Vriska regrets nothing! She basically had to do what she did. Like she had no choice. God, it’s not like anyone actually _died_ or anything. And she doesn’t actually care if none of the others seem to want to be around her anymore. They’re losers anyway, right? And she especially doesn’t care about that backstabbing bitch Pyrope.  
  
Not at all.


	24. > Feferi: Panic

It’s been nearly two weeks, now. Two weeks of Sollux hiding out in their room, playing stupid phone games and barely getting off of their bed. Two weeks of Feferi bringing them food and trying to coax them out into the common room, or get them to talk about what happened. It’s ridiculous. She’s seen them crash like this before, of course she has, but this is a pretty bad one, and she doesn’t know when they’re going to emerge from it.   
  
Maybe they’d feel better if they got to see Aradia, so they can see for themselves that she’s still alive, but the doctors still say no on that one, plus apparently Aradia doesn’t want to talk to anyone anyway? Tavros came out of her room looking pretty crushed, and Terezi says talking to her is just super depressing right now.  
  
Which is really weird, because she’d always been pretty fun before? But maybe getting your brain zapped that hard can kind of mess with you? Feferi manages to corner Ms Quan one day as she’s coming back from Aradia’s hospital room, and ask what’s going on with her. Dr Scratch and Dr English will never tell anyone anything useful, but Ms Quan might at least try.  
  
“I’m just so worried,” Feferi says. “Is she going to be okay? Everyone says she's really sick." She plays up the cute-kid-sad-eyes thing as hard as she can, and Ms Quan seems to go for it. She sighs, and ushers Feferi into her office, closes the door behind them.  
  
“She’s not sick exactly,” she says. “But Aradia’s obviously been through a lot of trauma, physically and mentally. I think she feels very...” She trails off. “Tired,” she says, eventually. “It’s going to be a long road for her to get back to normal. She’s struggling a lot with things like motor skills and language right now, but Petra is going to work with her on the physical side of things, and I think we’re looking at bringing in a speech therapist.”  
  
“Yeah, but it’s like... she doesn’t even WANT to talk to us, though? And we were supposed to be friends?”  
  
“I know, Feferi. I’m sorry. All you can do is give her time.”  
  
“When can Sollux visit her?”  
  
“When she’s stronger. And when the doctors have... I suppose, made sure that Sollux won’t hurt her again.”  
  
“They didn’t do it on purpose!”  
  
“Of course not. Nobody thinks that for a moment. But we can’t be too careful.”  
  
“It was just because...” Shit, how does she do this? Honestly, a part of her just wants to tell Ms Quan what really happened. It all feels too big and scary and real, right now - it’s one thing not to mention someone sneaking out of their room at night, or calling you a mean name, but this? Aradia could have _died_ , and part of Feferi just wants to cry and run to an adult.   
  
But, no. She can’t do it. She doesn’t know what would happen to Vriska if she did, and Vriska is one of them, and she just can’t. It probably wouldn’t even help Sollux anyway.  
  
“It was just because Sollux was worried about me,” she says, instead. “They thought I was stuck outside, but, uh... it was just a mistake. But it would never happen normally, you know?”  
  
“I know. And I know you’re trying to help your friend, and that’s really kind of you, but we just can’t risk any more mistakes like that.”  
  
This is so frustrating. And worrying. “Are they, like... going to hurt Sollux?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Like, take them away, or take their neural tech out, or... I don’t know, something? Because I promise they won’t do it again, we’ve been working on them controlling it more, like practicing with their phone, and...” This is a lie. Sollux hasn’t even tried anything like that. They just say it’s pointless and they’ll never be able to control anything. But she will make them do it, if that’s what they need to do.  
  
“I don’t know yet, Feferi. I think the doctors want to work on making Aradia safer instead.”  
  
“You don’t _know_?”  
  
“I don’t. They don’t discuss everything with me... Nothing is planned for right now, I can tell you that much.”  
  
Well, that was... great. Feferi does not feel any better after that little talk. She does not feel any better AT ALL.


	25. [2007]

_*click*_

_DS     Who do we have scheduled next? Vantas, isn’t it?_

_WQ     The little boy with the unusual blood, I think you said?_

_DS     Yes, that’s right. Come in, Karkat. (Brief pause.) Sit down._

_WQ     Hi, Karkat._

_KV     Who are you?_

_DS     Karkat,_ manners _._

_WQ     I’m Willow Quan... I’m going to be working here with you all, so I just wanted to have a little chat with all of you to see how you’re doing._

_KV     Oh._

_WQ     And to find out what’s unusual about you and any special needs or issues you might have because of that._

_KV     Are you going to fix them if I do?_

_WQ     (Laughter). Well, I’ll do what I can. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about what makes you different from other children?_

_(Pause)._

_DS     Karkat?_

_KV     I’ve got fucked-up blood._

_DS     Karkat, LANGUAGE._

_KV     It’s the wrong colour._

_DS     You’ve read Karkat’s medical notes, I assume?_

_WQ     Yes, I remember._

_DS     Karkat’s genes were altered using genetic information from a horseshoe crab. One effect is that, yes, his blood is blue - hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin - but another is that it has some incredible anti-bacterial properties. And so Karkat is absolutely immune to almost all bacterial infections._

_WQ     Oh, wow. So you never get sick, Karkat?_

_KV     Yes I do._

_DS     He can still be affected by viruses. But we’ve actually exposed him repeatedly to bacteria - even injected him with some quite aggressive ones - and his body seems to fight it off every time. So this is a really, really interesting development that we’ve got here._

_WQ     Oh, wow. So you’re doing some really important stuff here._

_DS     Yes, I think it’s got huge potential if we can refine the techniques enough. Obviously he’s an early prototype, as they all are._

_WQ     So do you have any bad side-effects, Karkat?_

_KV     People keep sticking needles in me._

_WQ     (Laughter). I’m sorry to hear that._

_DS     Obviously it’s necessary to take samples and run tests regularly. Karkat isn’t too keen on the process._


	26. > Karkat: Talk about your feelings

Haha, right. The only feeling Karkat has right now is ‘annoyed’. And ‘kind of sore’, since this morning was his regular ‘let’s drain all your blood and do mysterious shit with it’ appointment. He doesn’t even know what they do with it, at this point. Or particularly care. Maybe they’re off curing meningitis with it or something, whatever.

But, alright, maybe he’ll admit to a little bit of worry about Sollux. They’re always fucked up over something, but they’re like, _unusually_ fucked up over this. It’d probably help if they’d let Aradia out of solitary already, but Sollux probably wouldn’t see her anyway even if they did. And, yeah, okay, Karkat is... fond of them. He might, if absolutely forced to admit it, have said they were... one of his best friends. Kind of. The sort of best friends where most of the time you find the other one incredibly annoying, but you hang out and insult each other anyway because it’s still more fun than not. 

But it’s been weeks since hanging out has been an option, and he might kind of, just a little bit, maybe, sort of miss it. So he heads to Kanaya’s room instead. 

Kanaya is lying on her bed, sewing something. She’s using wool, and one of the huge, blunt-ish plastic needles - the only ones she’s allowed to have, because this place is ridiculous - but she’s still managing to make it look neat and precise. Terezi is sprawled on the other bed, snoring slightly, and Karkat’s kind of glad she’s getting some rest. She’s been pretty fucking stressed lately, even if she won’t ever tell anyone about it.

‘Karkat,’ says Kanaya. ‘I was just about to head to the canteen for lunch. Let Terezi get some rest in peace.’ She puts the sewing down. She doesn’t say 'without your noisy ass waking her up,’ because she doesn’t need to. ‘Shall we?’

Sollux, predictably, isn’t there, but Feferi is, and Nepeta (Karkat breaks eye contact quickly, pretends not to see her start to pull out a chair for him), and most of the others. 

“You think Captor’s ever going to come out of their room again?’ he asks Kanaya as they sit down together. ‘I mean, they can’t lurk in there forever, right?’

‘Probably not,’ Kanaya says. ‘But nonetheless, I think this has hit them rather hard. Perhaps we could visit Aradia after this? See if they know when she‘s coming back yet?’

Karkat sighs. ‘Am I being a terrible, horrible shitbag if I say I don’t want to? No, don’t answer that, I already know I am. I just... it’s just so awful, Kanaya. She doesn’t want anyone there, nobody else wants to be there, she’s just waiting for us to go away. And, I mean... you know what’s fucking weird?’ He doesn’t wait for Kanaya to respond. ‘When you go in, she’s never, you know... doing anything.’

‘Doing anything?’

‘Like, when you walk through the door, you never see her just putting a book down or turning the TV off or taking headphones off or anything. I don’t think she’s even doing that. She’s just lying there like she’s... waiting.’

‘For what?’

‘I don’t know, Kanaya. To fucking grow old and die. It gives me the creeps.’

Kanaya falls silent, and he knows she doesn’t really have any more of an answer than he does. But she’s saved from having to say so, because that’s when Ms Quan puts her head round the door.

‘Hi, guys,’ she says. Everyone turns and looks and they must all have matching worried expressions, because she quickly adds, “Don’t worry, nothing bad. I’ve just been asked to let you know there’ll be a new face here tomorrow. Ms Lalonde’s daugher’s going to be coming in and shadowing me for the summer - apparently she’s interested in going into psychology and wants to get a little experience. She’s not much older than you all, so be nice to her, okay? Don’t scare her off!’ And she’s gone.

Karkat and Kanaya look at each other. More newbies, Karkat thinks. Wow. The excitement just never stops around here. Still, it’ll give them all something new to talk about for a while.


	27. > Nepeta: Meet the new girl

Nepeta’s the next one who’s due to see Ms Quan, and honestly, she is pretty excited! A new person and one who’s not much older than them and one who’s from _outside_ is a pretty new and interesting combination. What do kids from the outside even look like, anyway, she wonders? I mean, obviously she’s seen them on TV, but that doesn’t necessarily tell you anything.

And as it turns out she’s right - Rose actually doesn’t look much like a TV kid. She’s pretty, but she’s short and kind of chubby, like Aradia used to be before she got ill, and she’s got tan skin and tangly reddish-blonde curls held down by a hairband. She has really awesome clothes, too! Most of their clothes in here are oh-my-god boring, Nepeta got a tshirt with a cat printed on it once and she wore it until there were holes in the amrpits, but Rose has this cute little purple shirt and swishy skirt and it’s really cool. Nepeta kind of forgets for a minute that she’s supposed to be here to talk to Ms Quan and just waves at Rose, who to her credit doesn’t look weirded out by Nepeta’s face at all. Probably Ms Quan warned her? But it’s still nice that she doesn’t.

“Hi, Ms Leijon,” Rose says, and smiles. That’s adorable. Pretty much nobody calls her that. She grins back with her wide cat mouth and all her teeth - Rose still doesn't even blink - and says “Hi, Ms, um, Lalonde, right?”

“Right.”

“Rose is just going to sit in with us today, okay?” Ms Quan says. “If you’re uncomfortable at any point, it’s okay to ask her to step outside.” 

Haha, right, like Nepeta’s going to pass up the chance to maybe be the first to talk to her? Nah. “I’m not uncomfortable.”

“Okay. That’s good. So, Nepeta, how have you been feeling this week...?”

“I’m... okay? I mean, everything’s pretty normal? Hey, uh, Rose, how long are you going to be staying here?”

Rose smiles again. “Six weeks.”

“Nepeta? Rose is just here to observe. If you could try to focus...”

Ugh. Why would she want to focus on answering the same questions she answers every week, when something new is actually happening? Whatever. It’s lunchtime after this, and she still gets to be the one to tell everyone what the new girl looks like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT LIVES. I really didn't mean to hiatus this, but life stuff happened and also I got kind of stuck on a plot point. But... it's not dead!


	28. > Eridan: Swim

He’d been kind of hoping Feferi would be at the pool, but she hardly ever is anymore - she spends most of her time fussing over Sol, far as he can tell. Which sucks. It’s always so much more fun to swim with her here, giggling and splashing him and chasing him underwater. When he’s alone he just kind of swims up and down quietly and... well, it’s not the same, is it.

(Ugh. Why’s it got to be Sol, of all people? Are they actually, like, together now? It sucks not knowing. But then again it’s entirely possible that knowing would also suck.)

He slides into the cold water, slips under the surface, and... breathes in. It’s always such a weird relief, that first moment, letting his tired lungs take a break while his gills take over. The salt water feels cool and soft and his gills don’t feel dry and itchy anymore and it’s so good.

But the truth is, honestly, after just three or four lengths of the pool his gills are aching too, because really they don’t work any better than his stupid lungs do. He likes to tell himself he’s a fish, a merman, he’s a sea creature, doesn’t belong on land, that’s why he’s always so uncomfortable, that’s why he always feels out of place. But the reality is that neither of them really work for him, do they.

(Why can’t they just give him new lungs, anyway? They fix up Ara’s organs every five minutes, right? But that’s because she’s Dr Scratch’s precious little pet project and he’s just some half-failed little experiment before they got it right with Fef. Why waste resources on that, right? Ugh.)

He floats still for a while and rests, feeling the water flowing over the little vestigial fins on his jawline and spine. Wishing she was here to distract him. It never feels like there’s much point to it, without her.

Fuck, he’s got it bad.

(And she’s probably snuggled up with fucking Sol somewhere. And seriously, why _Sol_? What’s so fuckin’ great about them, they’re as much a fuck-up as he is, like, what can they do? Break computers? Yeah, so can a hammer. Fef and him, they’re the _same_ , they’re water people, they can do stuff nobody else can, they can share places nobody else can, she could lie here in the bottom of this pool with him and be quiet and alone together and think about life with him, if she wanted to, which she obviously fuckin’ doesn’t.)

Ugh.

He’s just going to stay down here a little longer and not think about stuff. Pretend he’s somewhere else. That he lives in a ship on an island in the middle of the sea with all his sealife friends for company, and nobody ever fuckin’ bothers him.


End file.
